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Gamescom: Battlefield 4's Graphics Lacking on PS4

With the arrival of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, EA and DICE have promised to bring the Battlefield PC experience to consoles, including massive scale maps, 64 player matches, and 60 frames-per-second gameplay. But up until now, all of the demos we've seen of Battlefield 4 have been running on supercharged PCs, producing jaw-dropping, unsurprisingly gorgeous results. This week at Gamescom, however, I had an opportunity to play Battlefield 4 on a PlayStation 4 development system, and the resulting experience has me worried.

In spite of EA and DICE's emphasis on narrowing the gap between consoles and PC, this week's PS4 demo did not include a full 64-player match or the franchise's beloved vehicular combat. Instead, attendees were treated to a local 16-player match of Domination mode, which limited the play area to a small segment of the game's freshly minted Paracel Storm map. While certainly a demonstration of how the game can be scaled down to satisfy players' need for object-based infantry combat, it's hardly living up to the promise of the "true" Battlefield experience's arrival on consoles.

But what's more concerning is how the game looks.

From the moment I sat down, I was surprisingly underwhelmed by the visuals. Instead of the crisp, detailed textures I've encountered this week on the PC version or other next-gen shooter titles, Battlefield 4 on PS4 looked soft and muddled. Wall textures looked half-finished, lacking some of the smaller material nuances or 3D variation. Environmental destruction was more extensive than Battlefield 3 and explosions would send larger chunks of buildings into the air, but once again, the particles looked dull. Weapon models looked great at the hip, but as soon as I raised them to look down the iron sights or scopes, imperfections became apparent.

Another contributing factor was resolution. While EA and DICE have not confirmed what resolution the game will run at on next-gen consoles, for the purposes of this demo, it was running at a resolution higher than 720p, but not 1080p. Though the difference between the two formats may not be recognizable to more casual players, after spending the week checking out games running natively at 1080p, it was readily apparent to me.

As uninspiring as my demo was visually, it's also important to remember that we are still months away from Battlefield 4's release. It's clearly a work in progress. And most importantly, the game itself is still very much a blast to play. But if today's demonstration is any indication, DICE's commitment to supporting 64-player games and maintaining a solid 60 FPS on next-gen consoles could very well come at the cost of visual fidelity, and as a franchise renowned for its state-of-the-art graphics, it's an unexpected compromise.